


Sold My Soul For This

by PoorUnfortunateSoul



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Deal with a Devil, Demon Deals, Demon Romelle, Demon Shiro (Voltron), Demon/Human Relationships, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, God Hunk, God Lotor, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Pining, Pining Lance (Voltron), goddess allura
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-13 10:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorUnfortunateSoul/pseuds/PoorUnfortunateSoul
Summary: "Oh, yeah, because I'm so sure that cozying up to what is probably the hottest specimen in the world is so hard," Lance teases fondly.Keith's presses his mouth into a straight line."Are you forgetting the part where he is literally a demon?"________________Keith made a deal with a devil when he was ten. He expects the day of reaping to be consumed by fire, but instead the demon makes an impromptu visit to his apartment with a favor to ask.Keith is left to figure out what stories his mother told him about God's and Goddess's are true, which ones will get him smacked for stereotyping, deal with why Lance has been acting so weird lately, keep Pidge from offering her life away to the Goddess of Misery, make an all knowing Goddess believe that he's dating the demon he offered his soul to, all while trying to maintain a 3.5 G.P.A. so he can keep all his scholarships.He can't remember the last time he's been this stressed.





	1. Prologue

Keith has always been described as a loner. Even as a kid, he stuck mostly to himself. He can remember the many parent-teacher conferences brought on by concern for his isolated behavior.  

That had all been voluntary, though. He had chosen to close himself off, too exhausted by conversation and socializing to seek out friends. He had his parents on the rare, one off times that he did want to talk. He felt completely content in their companionship, and hadn’t felt the need to try to force more relationships. The other kids hadn’t wanted to talk to him, so why should he put in all the effort? 

However, Keith stares at the tombstone and knows that he hadn’t chosen this. He is ten years old, still very much a child, when he becomes truly alone. 

The children at school are merciless when he returns from his designated grieving period. There’s something funny about his mother leaving and his father dying; something about the misery above his head and his steady decline that makes it entertaining to taunt him. 

He returns home to his foster family, and collapses on the air matress he was given. It’s part of his daily routine now, to sulk and pity himself as he listens to the others in the house screaming at each other downstairs. Everyone else has decided that he’s done grieving and that it’s time for him to join the real world, but he doesn’t feel ‘over it’ yet. Still, their patience and compassion has run out, so he makes himself move through the motions during the day. The afternoons are his to just sit and feel the splintered wood in his insides. 

It’s in these moments where his heart clenches, and his eyes water despite himself, that he wishes that he had made more time for friends when his parents were alive. No one wants to start a friendship by picking up the pieces of his broken soul, and even if he tried to fake it, he’s too sharp. All the blood would give him away, and they’d move back and tell him that they don’t have the time to fix him, even he hadn’t asked them to. 

Keith sighs when he’s called down for dinner. Moping time is over. 

 

_

It’s an off-handed comment at school that finally pushes Keith over the edge. It’s Mother’s Day, and the class is given the task to draw their mothers. Keith’s staring at the paper in front of him in horror, realizing that he’s almost completely forgotten his mother’s face, when James Griffin slides over to his desk. 

Peering over Keith’s shoulder, he says, “Must be awful to have a mother who doesn’t love you.” 

The words make Keith wince, and James’s smirk grows. People have said the same thing to him before, with hushed voices filled with fake sympathy to make themselves feel better, but there isn’t even any fake or forced kindness in James’s voice. He knows exactly what he said, and how it sounds; how it’ll affect Keith. 

“My mom loves me,” he mutters.

He tries to sound confident, but much like he had chosen to keep himself isolated as a kid, she’d made her choices as well. 

“Oh, yeah?” James taunts, getting close to Keith’s face. “Is that what she told you right before she  _ left _ you?”

Keith has had to go to multiple therapy sessions to get his anger under control, ever since showing up at the foster home and lashing out at everyone.  He knows that there’s other to thinks of to calm him down, a more rational answer to the situation, and even some numbers to count. 

None of it crosses his mind, and he isn’t aware of what’s happening until a security guard's arms are around his waist, and James’s blood smeared across his knuckles. He’s placed in a seat outside the principal's office, and his stomach drops. The misery above his head cackles; it loves it when he digs himself a deeper grave. 

 

-

“Kids are cruel, Keith.”

He knows. 

“That’s still no excuse to get violent.” 

He knows. 

“There were other solutions, other options. You could’ve talked with him.”

He knows. 

“We’ve been working on this for a while now, Keith.”

He knows. 

“I’m starting to think you aren’t listening.”

He knows. 

“You aren’t showing improvement.”   
He  _ knows. _

 

-

Keith is nearly expelled, but his social worker pulls the orphan card and he gets suspended instead. He almost wishes he was expelled; it would’ve brought some form of normality to his current, hectic life. Receiving special treatment has never sat well with him, and this is no different. 

Keith puts his chin in his hand, and peers up at the night sky. The window is smudged - the whole house is a mess, aside from the one Keith resides in because he cleaned it upon arrival - but he can still the night sky that his mother was so enamored with.  

There’s different constellations, all named after gods and goddesses of their world. Some people claim to have seen them, and some claim that they don’t exist. His mother would talk to them like they were friends, and some of his only memories are of her whispering to the sky. 

He scans them now, and wonders which one convinced her to leave him behind. It causes bitterness to settle on his tongue, and he swallows it down to create a ball of lead in his stomach. The demons his mother used to fear feel much more real to him than any being of goodness. 

Keith looks at his hands and remembers the dried blood that had been there hours before. He supposes he’s always been much closer to the dark than the light. 

“What do you want?” the dark around the room whispers. “I can give you whatever you desire.” 

Keith squeezes his eyes shut, and presses his forehead to his knees. 

“Friends,” he whispers, like a prayer. “I want friends.” 

“I can give you that.” 

Keith looks up, and the shadows casted in the moonlight take the shape of a hand. It holds itself out to him, waiting patiently for Keith to reach for it. So, he does. 

He grasps onto the dark, and forgets to be afraid when it curls around his wrist. 

“So it is done,” the dark says, before it rushes forward towards his face.

Keith shrieks, and suddenly there’s a shock of pain along his cheek. It’s gone as soon as it came, and he brings a shaky hand up to the tender skin.

_ What has he done? _


	2. Chapter 2

“Took you long enough,” Keith grunts. 

Lance runs up to him with his huge “just got laid” grin on his face. It makes Keith gag. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Lance says, pulling his keys to their dorm room out.  

He lets them both into the room, and they each throw their book bags in their respective place.

“I told you I left my keys here by accidents during lunch, Lance,” Keith complains, flopping down on his bed. “You left me out there for an hour, sharpshooter.” 

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, but it was  _ Nyma _ , dude. She’s like, a literal goddess.”

Keith groans and covers his eyes with his hands. 

“I don’t need to hear about your love life, Lance.”

“You asked,” Lance shrugs, but there’s a shit eating grin on his face. 

“I literally didn’t.”

Lance sits on the floor, and starts pulling things out of his bookbag. 

“What time does Pidge wanna meet for dinner?” Lance asks, and Keith pulls his face out of his pillows. 

He unlocks his phone, and scrolls through the copious amount of texts he send Pidge about the torture that is Environmental Science, and her obvious amusement at his suffering. 

“Six thirty,” he murmurs, dropping the phone back onto the bed. 

There’s more shuffling from Lance’s spot on the floor, and then he says, “Was class that bad?”

Keith makes an affirmative noise, and Lance laughs. Lance stays quiet after that, and Keith revels in it. He lets all of the stress from his science class go ( if he has to hear  _ you should’ve learned this in high school  _ one more time, as if everyone hadn’t gone to separate high schools, he’s going to lose his mind) before blindly searching for his laptop. He should probably get started on his paper for his psychology class. 

Keith is a junior now, and was ecstatic to finally be taking classes in his major. Unfortunately, he still has to take things like Environmental Science that have literally nothing to do with his degree, but he can deal. Most of the time. 

The only sound for a while is the tapping Keith and Lance’s keyboard, but it doesn’t stay that way for long. Lance can’t handle silence for too long.

Having grown up in a big family, Lance is accustomed to loud, all day everyday. Quiet isn’t something he likes; quiet means something is wrong. It makes him anxious, so he starts mumbling to himself while he works on class work. 

No one could really understand how the two of them were friends, with such polar opposite personalities, when they were in high school. Keith doesn’t love silence, per say, but he had enough screaming during his childhood to last him a lifetime. Sometimes it feels like Lance does nothing  _ but _ scream, but he’s persistent as well. 

He saw what happened with James, and his big brother mode kicked in. As soon as Keith was back in school, Lance took him under his wing. Keith tried to shake him, but the more he pulled, the more Lance pushed. It became less exhausting to let Lance follow him everywhere than to try and shake him off. 

Somewhere along the line, Lance became someone Keith cared for as well. He was surprised to find that he didn’t mind that Lance was the first person he ran to when his grandfather died. Keith was never good at letting people in. He’d argue that he still isn’t, considering he’s made no new friends in two of years of college, but he doesn’t regret Lance. Not that he’d tell him that, though. 

“It’s six twenty-five,” Lance says, pulling Keith from his daydream. “We should probably get on the elevator if we want to meet Pidge in time.”

Keith grunts to show that he’s heard. Lance waits patiently for him to find a spot to stop at, twirling his keys. It used to make Keith anxious, but he’s known Lance long enough to know that he’s not trying to hurry him up. He just needs something to do with his hands. 

Keith - lightly - tosses his laptop to his bed, and stands up. Lance leads the way from the room. 

“Remind me again why we decided to live on the eighteenth floor?” Lance asks, while locking their door.

“Because all the freshmen live on the sixth.”

Lance sighs, and they walk to the elevators. Keith glances out the window, and looks at what he can see of the sunset past the bridges. 

The elevator announces its presence with an exaggerated groan, and Keith sticks as close to Lance as he can. 

The air inside the elevator is always awkward. Everyone tries to avoid eye contact, and, honestly, Keith can’t tell if everyone having their eyes trained on the floor makes everything better or worse. 

Lance senses Keith’s anxiety, and hooks their pinkies together. Keith clutches onto it like a lifeline. The ride down is silent, save for the worrying groans from the elevator, and the short stops to let more awkward college kids shuffle on or off. 

It comes with great relief when they reach the fifth floor, and can finally meet up with Pidge in the cafeteria. She glances up from her textbook and gives them a short wave when they walk past. 

“I’ll get the food, you get the drinks,” Lance says, and Keith nods, even though it wasn’t a question. 

He gets himself a Dr.Pepper, and Lance a Pepsi. He also makes sure to nab Pidge a chocolate milk. 

She somehow managed to get herself cut off it from it after buying too many in one study session. Keith has bought numerous Dr.Pepper’s for the caffeine to get him through particularly hard final weeks, so he can’t imagine what she pulled to get herself in that situation.   

He meets up with Lance in line, who has his veggie quesadilla in one hand, and his own basket of chicken strips in the other. They swap each other, and pay for their meals separately. 

“Remind me to check to see where my flex account is at when we get back upstairs,” Lance says, sliding into the booth next to Pidge. 

“‘Kay.” 

Keith hands Pidge the chocolate milk, and she perks up from her zombie-like studying haze immediately. 

“Chocolate milk!” she exclaims, rubbing the carton against her cheek. “How I’ve missed your chocolatey goodness.” 

Lance rolls his eyes.    
“Keith literally bought you a carton yesterday.”

“24 hours is too long,” she says, sighing wistfully. 

Keith and Lance watch in horror as she rips it open and chugs it all in one go.   
“This is why you got cut off, you know,” Keith says, not sure if he should be disgusted or impressed by her chocolate mustache. 

Pidge shrugs, and takes the piece of Keith’s quesadilla that he always rips off for her. 

“Whatever, I had a long day. I deserve it.”

“What happened?” Keith asks, glancing at Lance out of the corner of his eyes. 

Lance sticks his tongue out at him. 

“Nyma sexiled me  _ again _ ,” she groans. “It’s like she’s never shared a space with someone before! It’s supposed to be our room, not her personal fuck room.” 

“She’s an only child,” Lance offers, “So I don’t think she’s shared a space with someone before. Or. You know. So I’ve heard.”

Keith gives Lance a look.  _ Smooth _ . 

“Yeah, well, whoever it is she’s fucking had better be some sort of Greek God or something. This is the fourth time this week she’s kicked me out to sex him up. And it’s only  _ Monday.” _

Keith scrunches his nose. He hadn’t known that part. 

“He isn’t,” Keith says, revealing in the offended face Lance makes. 

“Figures,” Pidge says, pouting.

“Uh, excuse me,” Lance cuts in, leaning towards both of them, “but I have seen the man she is sleeping with, and he is an exquisite specimen.” 

Pidge’s eyes widen and she slams her hands down on the table.   
“You’re who she’s sleeping with!” she accuses, pointing a finger at him. 

Lance freezes for a moment, brown eyes filled with panic when they flicker towards Keith. 

“Um…. Ketchup!” he says, grabbing his half-eaten basket of chicken. “Would you look at that, I forgot ketchup. Better go get some!” 

“You hate ketchup!” Pidge says, but Lance is already up and gone. 

Pidge shakes her head and sighs in exasperation. Keith snickers while he picks at his dinner. 

“I hate him,” Pidge says, adjusting her classes. “I really hate him.”

Keith grins, because he knows she doesn’t. She really doesn’t. 

“It’s Nyma. You of all people shouldn’t be mad that he’s excited about getting some with her. Unless you’re jealous, of course.”

Pidge rolls her eyes.    
“‘Getting some?’ What are you, ninety years old? God, Keith, just say fucking like a normal person. And I’m not  _ jealous _ ,” she adds. “That crush is long over, now that I know that she’s a selfish heathen that would sexile her roommate on a daily basis on the week of a big test. Besides, you have no room to talk when it comes to bad crushes. You’ve had one on our casanova since ninth grade  _ at least _ .” 

“I have not,” Keith denies, but he’s blushing. Shit. “Okay, fine. I won’t tell Lance about your old crush on Nyma if you don’t tell him about my crush on him.” 

Pidge holds her pinky out on the table, and Keith connects his with hers. Lance comes back then, looking significantly less panicky than when he left. 

“So, what are we talking about?” he asks, and Pidge and Keith share a look.   
“Nothing,” they both say, and Lance looks taken aback. 

Pidge kicks Keith’s shin under the table. He would kick her back, but he knows that she’s right. If one of them were to break, it would be him.     

 

<3 ____ <3 ____<3

“Look, all I’m saying is, imagine how quickly we could get our degrees if we weren’t forced to take classes that have no relevance to what we wanna do. Sometimes I think about how you won’t get a degree that will actually let you practice until your twenty-six, and then it’s like, your life is halfway over.  _ Halfway _ . Realistically you could have your degree in like, two years if they only made you take classes that will actually help you in your field,” Lance rants, and Keith nods thoughtfully. 

“You’re kind of preaching to the choir here, Lance. I’ve talked about it with Pidge before, and -”

Keith is abruptly cut off by Lance placing a hand on his chest. He frowns and looks over at him, but Lance is looking down the hallway.   
“Dude, did you order tall, dark and handsome that’s hanging out in front of our room?” he asks, and Keith follows his gaze. 

Standing in front of their door is a tall Japanese man with a shock of white hair on his forehead, contrasting with the black all over the rest of his head. He has a prosthetic arm crossed over his chest, and his other one is being used to flick through his phone. 

“I’ve never seen that man before in my life,” Keith says, and Lance nods. 

“You need a student ID to get on this floor, so he must be a student, right?” Lance says, “Maybe he just got himself locked out, like you did last week.”

Keith shrugs, frowning. Plausible, but it still wouldn’t explain why he’s hanging outside of their dorm room, and not his own. Lance seems to recognize this as well, and they both cautiously creep forward to their room. 

“Um, hello?” Lance says, “Is there something we can help you with?”

The man looks up, and his dark eyes make Keith’s blood run cold. He knows those eyes. 

“There is actually,” the man says, and Keith’s heart beats faster with every word he says. “Well, it’s mostly something Keith can help with. No offense, Lance.” 

Lance’s face pinches together. Keith can feel his palms sweating.

“Why do you know our names,” Lance demands, getting in the man’s face now. Keith thinks about the shadows getting Lance the way they once got him, and the scar on his face burns. “Are you some sort of stalker or something?”

The man frowns. 

“Stalker? No, I’m no stalker.”

“Then why-”

“Let’s do this inside,” Keith whispers, but they both manage to her him. 

Lance looks back at him, and he nods. The man moves out of the way of the door, and Lance uses his key to let them in. Keith stays in the small path way in their dorm that connects their main room with their bathroom with the man, and Lance sits at Keith’s desk. 

“You know why I’m here, Keith,” the man says, and Keith swallows thickly. 

“I do,” he mutters, rubbing at the scar.

Lance makes a small noise of confusion, and they both ignore it. 

“Does this have to be now?” he asks, weakly. “Can’t I keep it for a little while longer?”

The man raises an eyebrow.

“Keep it? Keep what?”

Keith looks back at Lance, and the man follows his gaze. Lance seems to get the hint, and places his hands over his ears. 

“You know. My soul.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and Keith studies the pattern of the carpet. He looks up in surprise when the man laughs. 

“Keith, no, that’s not what I’m here for. I’m actually here for a seperate deal, though it seems that you don’t even understand our first. Your soul is mine only  _ after _ you die the way the Goddess of Being has chosen for you.” 

_ Good to know _ , Keith thinks, but then the rest of what the man says sinks in and he frowns again. 

  
“Wait, what deal?” he asks.

“A deal that, should you accept, means that you do a favor for me, and I’ll consider our first deal met.”

Keith drops his crossed arms. 

  
“Met? You mean, if I do you favor, I get to keep my soul? No tricks?”

“No tricks,” the man promises.

He raises his hands in defense when Keith still doesn’t look convinced. 

“What’s the favor?” he asks, despite his better judgement. 

The man gives him a soft smile.    
“Date me,” he says. “Well, pretend to, anyways.”

“Holy shit,” Lance says, before Keith has registered what’s been said. They both look back at him, and he looks away. “I mean, totally didn’t hear that. Definitely can’t hear past my hands, and definitely didn’t just overhear a really concerning conversation about souls and shit. Nope. Not a thing. Actually, I think I should get my hearing checked because I hear  _ nothing. _ ” 

“Smooth,” the man says, echoing Keith’s feelings from earlier. 

He turns back around, and what the man has asked of him finally clicks. 

_ Holy shit. _


End file.
